Time: 112 Minutes
Age Rating: R13 – Violence, offensive language & sex scenes
Cast:
Cillian Murphy as Thomas Shelby
Barry Keoghan as Erasmus “Duke” Shelby
Rebecca Ferguson as Kaulo and Zelda Chiriklo
Tim Roth as John Beckett
Stephen Graham as Hayden Stagg
Sophie Rundle as Ada Thorne
Director: Tom Harper

Peaky Blinders ran for 6 seasons, but it was very clear that it ended a season earlier than what writer and showrunner Steven Knight intended it to. 4 years later, he’s delivering a proper finale for the series in the form of a movie on Netflix. As a fan of the series, I wouldn’t say that the film fully stuck the landing, but I liked it overall.

The Immortal Man unfortunately doesn’t have the greatest start. In its first half, the pacing isn’t particularly good, it jumps around to multiple different characters and places erratically, and it especially struggles with the parts focussed on Cillian Murphy’s Tommy Shelby. Thankfully, it picks up in the second half and becomes closer to the Peaky Blinders movie that you’d expect. I think a major problem is that the movie spends its first hour re-establishing the characters in this story, and also trying to cover key events that happened between the series finale and this movie that we didn’t see. I can’t help but feel like this should’ve been a mini series rather than a movie. If it really needed to be a film, it really should’ve been a lot longer, at least longer than 1 hour and 50 minutes. With The Immortal Man, the setup and groundwork that would’ve covered 1 or 2 episodes of a 6 episode season takes up half the runtime of the movie. The actual concept of the plot is fine, but it needed far more development and time than it was given.

The big question is whether it was worth making a whole movie to act as a finale to the Peaky Blinders series. Based on the end result, I’d say that it is a rather half-hearted yes. For a movie attempting to give fans a satisfying ending to a series, there are some questionable choices, and the lack of inclusion of key surviving characters just really took me out of it at times. Taking the movie as a whole, I wouldn’t say that this is the ending that the Peaky Blinders series needed and is only marginally better than the series finale because it felt like an actual ending. To be fair, the ending is the best part of the movie and is the aspect that works the best. It gives closure to its lead character and I suppose that it’s enough to justify the film’s existence. The Immortal Man acts like the epilogue for the series, while opening doors for potential follow ups which they probably shouldn’t attempt. While people who haven’t watched the show could hypothetically watch the movie, it’s not a good entry point for the show at all, and they probably wouldn’t get much out of it.

Cillian Murphy is once again excellent as Tommy Shelby, he was always the anchor of the show and also the case with the movie. Even in the weakest moments of the film, he delivers and carries everything well. If nothing else, the movie gives him one last ride as the character and he does some great stuff here. Barry Keoghan plays Tommy’s son who is now running the Peaky Blinders and while I wasn’t on board with him at first, he grew on me in time. Rebecca Ferguson is good and makes the most of her scenes, and it was nice seeing Sophie Rundle, Stephen Graham, Ned Dennehy and Packy Lee reprise their Peaky Blinders roles. Tim Roth plays the villain and unfortunately he is a little weak, especially when compared to other memorable antagonists in the series, but does what he can with what he’s given.

Tom Harper directs this movie, and he just about perfectly captures the signature look, feel and style of the show, which isn’t too surprising since he has directed some of its episodes. There are some greatly filmed sequences and it’s a very well shot movie. The music stands out the most, both with the score and chosen songs, and they fit perfectly with both the movie and the series that came before.

Despite some issues and its limitations, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is a fine epilogue to the tv series, stylishly directed and with a good cast, especially an excellent Cillian Murphy.